Covid Action

Online Launch: Covid Action, Zero Covid’s new name
2022-09-11 15:00 - 17:30 (Europe/London) | Zoom
Join Professor Stephen Reicher of Independent SAGE, Janet Newsham of the Hazards Campaign, Alena Ivanova from Global Justice Now, and Joan Twelves from Covid Action. They will speak about the major objectives of the campaign to massively reduce infection rates and deaths from Covid. Attendees will be invited to put forward ideas for major Covid Action priorities to stop deaths and serious harm from Covid.
The event will be 3-5.30pm on Sunday 11 September. Register in advance here: https://bit.ly/covidactionlaunch

Campaign Call: A New Wave Rises
2022-10-10 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
The pandemic is not over! Join Coral Jones and Jonathan Fluxman from Doctors in Unite as we discuss how we can campaign to protect our communities. Register at https://bit.ly/covidactioncall

Zero Covid Scotland: How to make communal spaces safer from infection – and why it matters
2022-11-05 14:00 - 18:00 | Zoom
Online Public Meeting
How to make communal spaces safer from infection – and why it matters
Saturday 5th November 2pm
with Hilda Palmer from Hazards UK (named as the most influential individual in Health and Safety 2020 by ‘Safety Health Practitioner’)
and Ian Mullen, Zero Covid Scotland, Trade Union Representative for more than 25 years, currently with Unison City of Edinburgh Branch
Register here and a personal link for the meeting will be sent to your email account!

Campaign Call: Why the Campaign for Bereaved Families is Fighting For Justice
2022-11-14 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
Nathan Oswin – the Campaign director for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK – will bring us the latest updates on the CBFFJ’s campaign, the inquiry, and more.
About Nathan:
Nathan Oswin is a Multi Award Winning Campaigner, campaign director for Covid 19 Bereaved Families For Justice UK and director for Hillsborough Law Now. Nathan has over a decade of experience working across campaigns in charity, trade union and political sectors. He’s passionate about helping others create the change they want to make the world better, and about bringing lived experience groups together to elicit change and innovation across the campaigning sector. Nathan is the founder of a society that brings progressive campaigners together to share best practices. You can find him on twitter as well.

Long Covid Action: How Activists Are Fighting For All Of Us
2022-12-12 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
Announcing our next campaign call on Monday (12/12) @ 6pm! We’ll hear from Ondine Sherwood of Long Covid SOS and Katie Boyd of Covid Aid about how activists are fighting for & alongside those w/Long Covid & everyone affected by this virus. Register at https://linktr.ee/covidactionuk!
About our speakers:
Ondine Sherwood is one of the founders of Long Covid SOS, a charity advocating for recognition, research and rehabilitation for people with Long Covid. Long Covid SOS works with the NHS, National Institute for Health Research, NICE, the DHSC and the WHO and has featured extensively in the press both in the UK and abroad. Ondine is an IT professional and also a member of a Health Research Authority Ethics Committee in the UK.
Katie Boyd is Head of Operations at Covid Aid, responsible for the day to day running of the charity, focusing on key areas such as volunteer management, fundraising, partnership working and policy development. Covid Aid is a digital charity providing support to anyone significantly affected by Covid-19, including but not limited to individuals diagnosed with Long Covid and/or individuals experiencing grief due to loss of a loved one to Covid-19. Covid Aid provides advice and information on a range of Covid related topics as well as support provision via their online support community through weekly support sessions, Live O&A’s with experts, workshops and courses, all free to the user.

Campaign Call: COVID and the NHS Crisis
2023-01-09 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
We’ll have a speaker from Nurses United and Dave Carr (Critical care nurse, organiser at GSTT) of Unite, followed by general discussion. Link below or go to https://linktr.ee/covidactionuk to register!
“Our health service is in crisis. The government would have us believe this is due to the COVID pandemic. This is untrue. It’s due to a carefully designed plan, carried out over the last decade and more, to bring in an Americanised private system. The Health and Care Act, which came into operation six months ago, has effectively abolished the national part of the health service. Instead we have 42 separate health economies with responsibility for their own budgets. The great driver is to ration and deny care, therefore reducing any budget deficit. Both main parties talk about the need to use private health companies – “to reduce waiting lists”, and similar. Private companies exist only to make profit. As with our other formally nationalised bodies government money goes straight into the hands of the privateers. Funding needs to be dramatically increased.
Unless we kick out the private companies and restore a national health service, fully nationalised and adequately funded and resourced, nothing will change. Some private companies that have taken over GP practices for instance, have decided to close surgeries. Our health service has been underfunded for years. Hospital beds have been cut sharply and compared badly with other similar countries. PFI, enthusiastically taken up by the Blair government, has crippled the health sector. Our NHS used to be efficient, effective and cheap to run. This compared favourably with the American system which is inefficient and expensive. Nye Bevan, the founder of the NHS, talked about it replacing fear. The fear that people had of getting sick or having an accident. Unfortunately, that fear has returned. It’s down to all of us to fix that. One way we can start is by taking Covid Action – now!” – Frank McEntaggart, Covid Action Steering Committee

Organising Call: The Winter of our Discontent
2023-02-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
Announcing our next organising call — join us for a discussion about the current state of Covid in the UK. Meet others who are aware that there’s a pandemic going on, share ideas, get organised & energised for the year ahead!

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Impact on Healthcare)
2023-02-28 10:00 - 16:30 | YouTube
The Module 3 Preliminary Hearing will look at the impact of the pandemic on healthcare.
Click here for the agenda. (PDF)

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Political Decision Making)
2023-03-01 10:30 - 16:30 | YouTube
The Module 2 Preliminary Hearing will look at core political and administrative decision making in the UK.
Click here for the agenda. Note that while the agenda lists the start time as 10:00am, the inquiry website itself says 10:30am.

Hazards Campaign: Covid Workers Inquiry
2023-03-09 14:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
The Hazards Campaign Covid-19 Workers Inquiry will provide a wider remit than the narrow one that the official public inquiry has taken to give grass root organisations, workers, trade union reps and officers and other occupational health and safety activists the opportunity to register their concerns and challenges about the impact of the pandemic and provide a living record of the issues workers have faced in the UK. It will be an opportunity to hold employers, enforcers and Govt to account and to share good practice.

SOS NHS Demo: End the NHS Crisis – Support the strikes
2023-03-11 12:00 - 16:00 | Opposite Warren Street Underground Station, Warren Street Underground Station NW1 3AA, London, United Kingdom
SOS NHS DEMONSTRATION – END THE NHS CRISIS – SUPPORT THE STRIKES
Saturday 11 March – 12pm – Central London, NW1 3AA
We do not need to remind you about the unprecedented crisis in the NHS, but we do need to ensure our voice is heard. We also stand by NHS staff forced to take strike action and seek to expose the political choices this Government is making to underfund and privatise the NHS. This is also a moment just ahead of the Spring Budget to bring people together around an issue that unites us all.
We’ll be there too — meet up with Covid Action at Warren Street, just around the corner from Warren Street tube station from approx 11.45am. We’ll have our banner, posters and flyers! Print your own Covid Action flyers here: https://covidaction.uk/2023/03/04/covid-action-flyers — hope to see you there!

Zero Covid Scotland: Covid - Prevention is possible
2023-03-11 14:00 - 15:00 | Zoom
Since summer 2021, there has hardly been a week when the number of Covid-19 infections across the UK dropped below 1 million. With new variants spreading all the time, people are getting infected again and again, and the number of people suffering from Long Covid and organ damage keeps rising. To end the cycle of illness, we need sustainable ways of preventing infections.
Join us via Zoom this Saturday, 11th March at 2pm, to listen to two excellent speakers, followed by discussion:

Prof Stephen Reicher, St Andrews University and member of Independent Sage: Professor Reicher has also been involved in the Behavioural Science advice to the UK and Scottish Governments and now part of the Scottish Pandemic Preparedness Committee. He will be speaking in a personal capacity.
Lara Wong, founder of Clinically Vulnerable Families, a support and advocacy group.

Campaign Call: Take Back Our NHS
2023-03-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
Register here or at the link below.
We will hear from Tony O’Sullivan (retired NHS consultant paediatrician and Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public since 2015) and Noah Berman (Covid Action steering committee member, former customer of the American and Dutch for-profit ‘healthcare’ systems) about the ongoing effort to privatise the NHS — and how we can resist. We will have time for discussion.
More details about Tony:
Tony O’Sullivan is a retired NHS consultant paediatrician and Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public since 2015 . Member of KONP’s TU – Facing Health Campaigns Together. KONP / HCT were key to launch of NHS coalition of which COVID Action is a sponsor. Locally, he works with the successful Save Lewisham Hospital campaign.

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Political Decisions in Scotland)
2023-03-21 10:30 - 16:30 | YouTube
The Module 2A Preliminary Hearing will look at core political and administrative decision making in Scotland.

National Day of Reflection
2023-03-23 12:00 - 17:00 | All over the country
On 23 March 2023, let’s all come together for the third UK National Day of Reflection – an opportunity to remember our loved ones who’ve died, support people who are grieving, and connect with each other. Please join us once again to mark the day with a minute’s silence at noon, a nationwide network of Walls of Reflection, and a series of grief-themed online programmes.
Sign up

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Political Decisions in Wales)
2023-03-29 10:00 - 16:30 | YouTube
The Module 2B Preliminary Hearing will look at core political and administrative decision making in Wales.

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Political Decisions in Northern Ireland)
2023-03-29 13:45 - 16:30 | YouTube
The Module 2C Preliminary Hearing will look at core political and administrative decision making in Northern Ireland.

Campaign Call: The Global Situation
2023-04-15 15:00 - 17:00 | Zoom
Hear from campaigners in Sweden and India on the Covid situation in their countries, then we’ll discuss how international solidarity and cooperation can help in the fight against Covid.

Speaker from Sweden’s bio:
My name is Roger. I’m running a tiny business in Sweden and also trying to get a infection protection. Trying to advocate for vaccines for children. (No one under 18 is allowed vaccine today)
Also active in WHN.
Founder of zerocovid Nordic on twitter, we have 4 DM groups with people who support our thinking.
There is also a FB group with 6000-ish members.

Speaker from India’s bio:
Prof. T. Sundararaman is currently a member of the global steering council of the Peoples Health Movement. Throughout his career he has worked with civil society organizations for furthering health rights in India. An MD in internal medicine, he was earlier professor of medicine in JIPMER one of India’s leading medical colleges. From 2003, he shifted to working in health systems and health policy, heading first the State Health Resource Center in Chhattisgarh and then the National Health Systems Resource Centers supporting health systems strengthening. Major contributions included design and implementation of India’s National Rural Health Mission, and the nation-wide community health worker program. He went back to academics as Professor and Dean of School of Health Systems Studies in TISS, Mumbai, and currently is adjunct faculty at the School of Public Health in JIPMER, Puducherry.

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Preliminary Hearing (Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience)
2023-04-25 | YouTube
The third Module 1 Preliminary Hearing will look at pandemic preparedness and resilience.
Times TBC.

Campaign Call: Until Everyone Is Safe
2023-05-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
Click here to register!

We will hear from Dr Sally Witcher, a distinguished campaigner on disability, poverty, inequalities and exclusion, and Lara Wong, founder of Clinically Vulnerable Families, a group which supports all clinically vulnerable people and those in their households.
Sally will be talking about the ongoing impact of the pandemic on disabled people, how the ‘new normal’ has spawned new forms of disabling inequalities and oppression, and what learning from the disability movement can tell us on how to fight back. Lara is looking forward to sharing her knowledge of evidence-based solutions and raising awareness of the need for protections.
Latterly Chair of the Scottish Commission on Social Security, Sally – a disabled person at high risk from Covid – is currently working as a freelance consultant. She is involved with various Covid campaign groups, including Zero Covid Scotland and the Covid Safety Pledge, and has been working for about a year to develop new approaches to an inclusive new normal.
Lara is a passionate campaigner for various causes related to the Covid-19 pandemic, including #MasksInHealthcare, safe voting, access to antivirals, clean air, and more. She has also advocated for the rights of Covid orphans, those who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and for those making a choice between education and lives. Clinically Vulnerable Families is a Core Participant in the UK Covid-19 inquiry.
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Sign the petition to require masks in healthcare!

Banner Protest Against Withdrawal Of Masks In Health And Social Care
2023-05-20 15:30 - 17:00 | Outside the Scottish Parliament (meet between the artificial ponds and the Visitors’ entrance)
When and where?
Saturday, 20th May, 3.30 pm, outside the Scottish Parliament (meet between the artificial ponds and the Visitors’ entrance)
What will we be doing and what should you bring?
This is an authorised protest with banners and placards, and an opportunity for anyone wishing to speak to do so. Bring yourself, any friends and, if you have the time for it, a placard with your own message to the Scottish government.
Why?
The Scottish Government has written to all healthcare and social care providers to advise them that, from 16th May:
Care home staff should no longer be allowed to wear a mask if they choose to (unless they get a personal clinical risk assessment, which very few will be able to get). To our knowledge, this makes Scotland the first country to actually ban the use of masks in any setting!
Masks are no longer recommended and will no longer be supplied to staff healthcare settings (except where they would have been used pre-Covid or based on a personal clinical risk assessment).
This decision infringes on employees right to protect their own health and wellbeing within the workplace. It puts the health and welfare of both staff and patients at increased risk from Covid and other airborne viruses.
In Scotland COVID-19 is still killing around 50 people each week (around 600 in the UK). It has resulted in nearly 2 million people (3%) of the UK population now living with Long COVID. A figure which is sadly likely to increase as according to the World Health Organisation, one in ten infections lead to Long COVID or other post-COVID conditions.

Campaign Call: It's (Still) All About Transmission
2023-06-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<
We will be joined by Dr. Jonathan Fluxman (Covid Pledge, Doctors in Unite) who will talk about the Campaign for Safe Healthcare, looking at the high levels of ongoing transmission everywhere – and the resulting (re)infections – and the damage this is causing to us all.
Dr. Fluxman is a retired GP, on the organising group of the Covid Pledge campaign and Covid Lead for Doctors in Unite.

UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Public Hearing (Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience)
2023-06-13 | YouTube
The Module 1 Public Hearing will look at pandemic preparedness and resilience.
Times TBC.

Campaign Call: COVID-19 Inquiry Update
2023-07-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<

We will hear from Nathan Oswin, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) project manager for the Covid-19 Public Inquiry, followed by Q&A.
Nathan Oswin is the Trades Union Congress (TUC) project manager for the Covid-19 Public Inquiry. Before joining the TUC he was the Campaign Director for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice and one of the team that planned and created the National Covid Memorial Wall. He is a non-executive director of Hillsborough Law Now.

Pandemic Update with Prof. Stephen Reicher
2023-09-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<
We will hear from Prof. Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, fellow of the British Academy as well as a long-time member of Independent SAGE and the Covid Pledge. Talk will be followed by Q+A.

WHO Webinar – Global Update on COVID-19: managing the risks from new variants
2023-09-27 12:15 - 13:15
Although COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern, [ed. note: not so sure about that] it remains a public health threat, and the number of people infected have increased in recent months. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 have also emerged, such as EG.5 and BA2.86. This webinar will cover the current situation, what the emerging variants are and how much of a risk they pose to public health, and what can be done about it.
This webinar will offer interpretation services in French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic, while also featuring AI-powered interpretation in Bengali, Chinese and Hindi to broaden global accessibility.
Speakers
Dr Sylvie Briand, Director, Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, WHO
Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Unit Head, Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit, WHO
Prof Anne von Gottberg, National Institute of Communicable Diseases, South Africa
Dr Meera Chand, Deputy Director, UK Health Security Agency (to be confirmed)
Dr Lorenzo Subissi, Technical Officer, Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit, WHO
Q&A
Participants will be able to submit questions during the webinar by using Zoom’s “Q&A” feature. You may also submit them in advance by sending them to epi-win@who.int

Join the Fight for Long Covid
2023-10-03 09:30 - 13:00 | Covid Inquiry, 121 Westbourne Terrace, London, 121 W2 6BU, United Kingdom
Join the Fight for #LongCovid
As core participants of the Covid Inquiry the Long Covid Groups will be standing up for those affected by #LongCovid
As well as giving evidence at the hearings we’re staging a gathering of unity
Come and join us! We would love to see you there!

Campaign Call: Ventilation Nation(s)
2023-10-09 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<
We’ll hear from the Hazard’s Campaign about ventilation in the work place, the Workers’ COVID Inquiry and more, followed by Q&A.

Nick Dearden: Pharmanomics
2023-11-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Zoom
>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<
We’ll hear from Nick Dearden about his new book – Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health – and will have time for Q&A.

Covid Inquiry Module 2 With Elkan Abrahamson
2023-12-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
>>> CLICK HERE TO REGISTER <<<
We’ll hear from the barrister representing the Covid 19 Bereaved Families For Justice group in the Covid Inquiry, and have time for Q&A.
More information about our speaker: https://www.jacksonlees.co.uk/broudiejacksoncanter/our-people/elkan-abrahamson
